Prog 2362 - It’s a 100-Page Festive Mega Blast!

[M.I.K.]

I was beginning to wonder if I was the only person who'd recognised that (rather distinctive) uniform.

[Proudhuff]

Well I settled down for a lengthy, long awaited, Zarjag festive read..

And was disappointed.

Dredd was well splendid, and strangely SinDex was top notch too, the best its been since it started IMHO.
Anderson was entry level stuff in both art and story. While Rogue's Nort speak almost had me reaching for the Babbel button, but thought, really why introduce this double speak now after all these years?
Everything else seemed, well, weekly and lacking that 'annual'feel.

Dissapointed of Edinbra.

[M.I.K.]

The uniform, however, appeared in 'Satan'

Oh, shit! Well spotted, Jim.

I was beginning to wonder if I was the only person who'd recognised that (rather distinctive) uniform.

Of course, maybe I was, 'cos Jim probably read where it was from in the story's script, seeing as how he lettered the blooming [/RaymondBriggsSpeak] thing.

[Jim_Campbell]

Of course, maybe I was, 'cos Jim probably read where it was from in the story's script, seeing as how he lettered the blooming [/RaymondBriggsSpeak] thing.

TBH, I always take a sneaky peek at the art before I get into the script, and I recognised the uniform as a callback to a Ranson Anderson straight away... I did have to double check exactly which story, though — my memory circuits aren't what they used to be!

[M.I.K.]

+++SPOILERS JUST IN CASE SOMEONE'S GOT THIS FAR INTO THE THREAD WITHOUT READING ANY OF THE WORDS++


I knew it was the bit where Satan proposes that Anderson becomes Silver Surfer to his Galactus which, now I think about it, might explain the bald heid.

[norton canes]

I'm not quite as much of a traditionalist as it didn't especially bother me the prog wasn't wall-to-wall Christmas strips. Or that in fact there was only one properly Christmas-themed story in the entire issue! Also, with all this discussion of whether the Christmas issue should be a jumping-on prog, it's interesting that the lead story, a one-off tailored for the prog, should contain so many continuity references so as surely to thoroughly confound any new readers who may have strayed into the pages. And no actual Joe Dredd. Still, good stuff for those of us in the know, though it was a brave decision by the Foster droid to provide a faithful rendition of Rico (Snr.) Dredd's very, uh, dated 70's bouffant.

Elsewhere Azimuth, Strontium Dog, Helium and Feral & Foe were all top-notch thrills. I'm totally on board with the Azimuth reveal - in fact if anything it's a bit disappointing that with the costume, it seems to be a reference to previous events. To my mind it certainly looks exactly like the sort of thing [redacted] would choose to wear if they were to port themselves into a world of virtual reality! If the strip does decide to go full-on GGC multi-verse it'll be a proper 2000 AZ (Ay (to) Zee) -imuth. No, it doesn't really work. Sorry.

Also, it's funny how my internal ranking of Dan Abnett's current stories fluctuates. A year ago I'd have had Brink and The Out as the top two but now, Feral & Foe and Azimuth(/SinDex) are definitely my faves. 'Faves!' How 70's.

Love the trip that Rufus Hound took us on in Strontium Dog. The opening frames seem to riff on the short montage of shared cabin (in)action in the Search and Destroy fan movie (and the denouement, that bit from Hot Fuzz). Perhaps the events at the end were a bit disjointed from the previous narrative. Also, did I miss the reason why the Mukjol (?) bar made Johnny hallucinate? Was it spiked? 

TOP THRILL though goes to the only strip that plays it by the book (as log as the book is 'How to write great Christmas-themed comic strips') - 'Silent Knight' is ten pages of absolute bliss. It's been too long since we had a Tiernen Trevallion decapitation panel! And yes, "The night is short and I've got toddlers to fry" goes straight into the compendium of classic 2000 AD one-liners. T-shirt please, Tharg!

[Richard]

Do I just have deja vu, or have we previously seen another story where someone was decapitated in exactly the same way as in Alpha?

[Funt Solo]

Do I just have deja vu, or have we previously seen another story where someone was decapitated in exactly the same way as in Alpha?

Maybe Cult of the Thugee from 1991's Judge Dredd Mega-Special?

[HeidTheBaw]

The quality was high overall, mainly due to the high standard of the stories spilling over (Helium, Railroad, Feral) plus Azimuth and a Dredd that teases some big doings in the future.........

But it really didn't feel like the same ms of year/Xmas Prog that I look forward to reading every year. I feel this annual issue is great place to kick off new stories as it's like opening a present, and often I talk one or two friends into picking it up because it's a great chance to 'jump on'.

Further positive would be that Torunn Gronbekk, after doing a terrific job on Battle, delivered the best Anderson I think I've read since Alan Grant. One of my favourite characters but the choices of scribe have been pretty mediocre for a long time not. I'd love to see Gronbekk get more regular work and maybe an extended Anderson, she's clearly got the chops for it.

On the downside I thought Rufus Hound's Strontium Dog was awful. I hope that's his last. I'd rather see the strip retired if that's the future of it. I like Hound, but this was not a Strontium Dog strip, just felt like he has some stuff he wanted to say and used this as a vehicle and dragged the Prog into this culture war crap that it manages to avoid most of the time. 2000ad remains one of the last bastions of escapism from conversations that dominate social media and now a lot of mainstream media, I'd rather it stayed that way.
Other than that, it felt disjointed, pointless and out of character. Devil's Railroad handles a topical subject with far greater skill, as we expect from a writer of Milligan's talent. If you are going to do this stuff do execute it cleverly.

Rogue Trooper was all a bit nothingy, which is par for course for Wessel to date.
 I skip Enemy Earth.

As much as I'm loving Helium, Feral and Foe, and Devil's Railroad, it feels odd not starting the new year with a clean raft of strips.

[broodblik]

For me Strontium Dog read like it was written by someone whom never read any Strontium Dog stories by Wagner/Grant. This is one of my major gripes with most stories these days based upon established IP disregard the history and its lore.

[Funt Solo]

and dragged the Prog into this culture war crap that it manages to avoid most of the time. 2000ad remains one of the last bastions of escapism from conversations that dominate social media and now a lot of mainstream media, I'd rather it stayed that way.

It's difficult to know what you're actually complaining about here, because you've been quite non-specific. My knee-jerk reaction is to look at the things being attacked in the strip - the most obvious of which are domestic violence and the rise of fascism. The thing is - Strontium Dog has always been a story in which Alpha fights for the underdog against whoever is bullying them, and one of the core themes of the strip has always been prejudice against "the other", and the battle against fascism (see Portrait of a Mutant, for example).

In a wider lens, 2000 AD has most often leaned against authoritarianism or thuggery. For examples, you can read this year's Void Runners, Helium, The Night Shifter, Portals & Black Goo, The Out or Proteus Vex. Going back a ways, there's Nemesis as a core example.

So, I'm a bit confused as to what the actual complaint is. I think, partly, that's a problem of modern language around politics. If someone complains about the "culture war", it's not clear what they're complaining about. If someone dislikes "wokeism", I don't know what they dislike. They're dog whistles.

[nxylas]

In a wider lens, 2000 AD has most often leaned against authoritarianism or thuggery. For examples, you can read this year's Void Runners, Helium, The Night Shifter, Portals & Black Goo, The Out or Proteus Vex. Going back a ways, there's Nemesis as a core example.

I notice you didn't mention Judge Dredd, a much more ambiguous example. Whilst it's obvious to me that John Wagner never intended Dredd to be a "hero" in the conventional sense, I can see why some have interpreted it as a pro-fascist strip. I think the people who have written Dredd over the years have sometimes taken it for granted that people would disagree with Mega-City One's authoritarian politics.

[nxylas]

Corrected version with the quotes not messed up:

In a wider lens, 2000 AD has most often leaned against authoritarianism or thuggery. For examples, you can read this year's Void Runners, Helium, The Night Shifter, Portals & Black Goo, The Out or Proteus Vex. Going back a ways, there's Nemesis as a core example.

I notice you didn't mention Judge Dredd, a much more ambiguous example. Whilst it's obvious to me that John Wagner never intended Dredd to be a "hero" in the conventional sense, I can see why some have interpreted it as a pro-fascist strip. I think the people who have written Dredd over the years have sometimes taken it for granted that people would disagree with Mega-City One's authoritarian politics.

[GordonR]

I notice you didn't mention Judge Dredd, a much more ambiguous example. Whilst it's obvious to me that John Wagner never intended Dredd to be a "hero" in the conventional sense, I can see why some have interpreted it as a pro-fascist strip. I think the people who have written Dredd over the years have sometimes taken it for granted that people would disagree with Mega-City One's authoritarian politics.

Yes. Thanks to social media, we now know there's a portion of fans who either don't realise Dredd isn't supposed to be a hero, or just don't care. The more authoritarian and reactionary he is, the happier they seem to be.

[Funt Solo]

I notice you didn't mention Judge Dredd

If you think I omitted Dredd because it's secretly a hotbed of pro-fascist support, you're barking up the wrong tree. (One might even suggest that the population of Battersea Dogs Home has escaped to the forest and are all barking up all the trees.) Sure, there will be some viewers of, say, Starship Troopers that don't realize it's an allegory and a critique (perhaps even cheering along at all the bug-stomping). That doesn't mean I would avoid talking about Starship Troopers in terms of it's actual aims.

To return to the point - do you really think 2000 AD, given the points I've already made, is pro-fascist? Did you think that the Stront story in this prog was "culture war crap"? Do you know what "culture war crap" actually means in the context it was used by Heid?

---

(Culture war carp is slapping Sunak in the face with a fish every time he says "stop the boats".)